Former Barclays bosses face trial over financial crisis-era deals with Qatar January 6, 2019 Four of Barclays' most senior bankers will appear in court tomorrow on charges relating to a rescue package the bank secured from Qatar at the height of the financial crisis. Former Barclays chief executive John Varley will stand trial alongside former senior executives Roger Jenkins, Tom Kalaris and Richard Boath over funding from Qatari investors that allowed the [...]
SFO tells former Barclays trader convicted of Euribor rigging to pay £77,000 confiscation order December 20, 2018 A former Barclays trader who was found guilty of manipulating the Euribor interest rate benchmark has been ordered to pay more than £77,000 or have an extra three years added to his sentence. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which brought its case against Philippe Moryoussef in 2015, has ordered the former trader to pay a confiscation order [...]
Barclays fined $15m by US authorities over whistleblower unmasking scandal December 18, 2018 US authorities have slapped Barclays with a $15m (£11.87m) fine over its attempts to unmask a whistleblower two years ago, led by chief executive Jes Stanley. A New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) investigation found Staley personally told the bank’s head of security to try to identify the author of two whistleblowing letters in [...]
Beat your demons: Barclays lets account holders block their worst spending habits December 11, 2018 Barclays has become the first high street bank to allow customers to “turn off” certain types of spending in a bid to give those with addiction better control over their money. Customers can now block payments to retailers including gambling websites, betting shops and pubs using a button in the bank's mobile app. Barclays developed [...]
Tesco fraud fiasco leaves new SFO boss with serious questions to answer December 6, 2018 The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has had more ups and downs than Thomas Cook’s share price. When it scores a big success, like the near £500m deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with Rolls-Royce, it gets cheered to the rafters, while failures such as the Tchenguiz brothers debacle sees it dubbed the Serious Farce Office by critics. [...]
The activist investor revolution has begun November 30, 2018 A year ago, anyone attempting to name a FTSE 100 stock that was likely to chart a double-digit share price rise would have been unlikely to name Whitbread. With a big exposure to the British consumer, the owner of Costa Coffee and Premier Inns seemed to have too many chips stacked on the wrong part [...]
Major UK banks pass ‘worst case scenario’ no-deal Brexit stress tests November 28, 2018 All of the UK’s major banks passed a beefed-up stress test as the Bank of England heralded the resilience of the UK financial system, it was revealed today. The seven banks – Nationwide, Santander UK, HSBC, Standard Chartered, Lloyds, Barclays, and RBS – had three and half times the capital ratio than before the global [...]
Tech outages at financial firms double as watchdog warns of data breach risk November 27, 2018 IT failures at financial institutions have more than doubled in the last year, the Financial Conduct Authority has revealed, as firms fight to update their legacy technology to keep apace with fintech startups. In the 12 months to October, the UK's financial firms reported a 138 per cent increase in technology outages to the FCA, as [...]
Barclays fights off cyber attack attempts every day, says digital defence head November 26, 2018 Barclays fights off attacks from cyber criminals every single day, according to the head of the bank’s cyber security operations centre. Former Europol cybercrime centre head of operations Paul Gillen told City A.M. that the number of attempts against the lender each day was “substantial”. However, the attacks vary in degree with the most common [...]
UK pharmaceutical company BTG shares soar as Boston Scientific announces £3.3bn takeover November 20, 2018 Shares in UK pharmaceutical company BTG soared more than 34 per cent this morning after US-based Boston Scientific proposed a £3.3bn takeover of the company. The London-listed company, which focuses on cancer, vascular conditions and emphysema treatments, saw shares jump from 620.5p to 826.01p following the announcement. BTG said the offer was “fair and reasonable” and [...]